Apple Hires Amazon’s Fire TV Head to Run Apple TV Business- Apple hired Timothy D. Twerdahl, former head of Amazon’s Fire TV division, as vice president in charge of Apple TV product marketing. Twerdahl previously worked at Netflix and Roku. Pete Distad will move from that role into focusing on Apple’s negotiations with media companies. Distad left Hulu in 2013 to join Apple.

Snapchat pushes original, unscripted Shows with new A+E Networks deal- A&E is developing an 8-week series called Second Chance about emotional exes trying to figure out why their relationships fell apart. The series will run in the UK, Australia, Canada and US. On Snapchat. Snapchat has been partnering with shows like The Voice and Planet Earth II to run complementary content but this will be its first original unscripted drama.

Vizio settles for $2.2 million in FTC suit over snooping on consumers’ viewing habits- Vizio agreed to settle a lawsuit with the US Federal Trade Commission and the state of New Jersey for $2.2 million. Starting in 2014, Vizio began tracking what shows were watched alongside IP addresses, MAC addresses, and nearby wi-fi networks, then a third party matched that data with sex, age, income level and more and sold for advertising use. Vizio agreed to delete all collected data, stop tracking, and get express permission before collecting and sharing any new information.

MTV’s Mina Lefevre Exits to Join Facebook as Head of Originals Development- Facebook has hired Mina Lefevre to be head of development of video content for Facebook. The former executive vice preisdent of development and head of scripted programming at MTV, Lefevre over saw shows like Teen Wolf and the Shannara Chronicles. Facebook recently indicated it wishes to develop original short-form programming. She joins co-founder of College Humor Ricky VanVeen who is now Facebook’s head of global creative strategy.

Viacom Puts Its Might Behind Six Brands to Turn Itself Around- Viacom says it will prioritize BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr along with its Paramount movie studio now. Other brands will be reorganized to support those six. For instance, Spike will be renamed, the Paramount Network. And Nickelodeon and Paramount will co-brand 4 films. This is the first major move by new Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish who took over as permanent CEO in December.

E.U. Agrees to Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services- The European Union agreed Tuesday on rules allowing subscribers of online services to access those services while traveling outside their home country within the EU. The rules apply to video streaming services, online TV services, music streaming services and online video game marketplaces.

Netflix Plans New Toys, Merchandise Based on Hit TV Shows- Netflix has posted a job listing seeking someone to oversee licensing shows for books, comics and toys and creating partnerships with retailers. Bloomberg also said Netflix is also starting to ask for a cut of merchandise made for shows released by Netflix but produced by outside studios. Netflix experimented with Stranger Things merchandise being sold in Hot Topic stores.

Nielsen steps closer to cross-platform measurement- The Media Rating Council has given accreditation to Nielsen’s Digital in TV Ratings tool which is part of its Total Audience Measurement initiative. The tool allows digital viewership to be combined with traditional TV ratings.

Dispatches from the Front

I have TWC now called Spectrum in NYC & I tried to stop my cable but because I have internet & tv bundled the price would go up if I stop cable. Crazy!

- Fin

One of your many bosses emailing here to ask if you've seen or heard of this streaming tv guide site for the top 3 streaming TV services out there. The site is www.streamingtvguides.com and it gives you what is currently on in your traditional grid format we grew up on.

It has Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and DirecTV NOW and all of their respective package options. So simply choose your package from the drop down you subscribe to and you'll see what's on right now! Find the logo of the channel or channels you're interested in in the grid and quickly scan what's on. You can even click on each program and get more information if needed. The reason I found this is simply due to the fact I didn't have my TV on and didn't want to turn it on, load the Sling app and wait for everything to populate just to see what was on, I just wanted to know if it was worth turning on. I know, pretty lazy, but now that I know this site is out there, it'll be quicker and more convenient in the future.

I've only used Sling TV myself and still am currently subscribed to it, but I found this quite useful to quickly glance through all the channels I have available. I can't speak to the other two services as I haven't used them, but it can take a few minutes just to "surf" through all the channels in the Sling app as it takes a couple seconds to load the channel information and art for the current show on each channel.

Anyway, just my two cents and hopefully it helps a fellow cordkiller out there. Been listening since the FrameRate days and haven't missed an episode. Keep up the good work!!

- Brian

On the last show Brian talked about syfy streaming issues with the expanse restarting and other crazy stuff. I ran into this awhile back. when running an ad blocker it will let you get to the first commercial break but then freaks out and restarts. Just in case no one has mentioned it already, just disable ad blocker (mine was ublock origin) and it will play fine.

- Mike

Hi Tom, thought you would be interested in how they cast the actress for Bobbie Draper. They were worried about finding an actress who was a 6 ft Polynesian that was physically muscular. Just as a side note, being 6'5" and 270 she is pretty much my perfect match.

I have to agree that this IS too expensive as compared to what you get from Hulu or Netflix. If you’re trying to put content out there, those are the price comparisons that people are going to make. Hulu @ $8 includes nearly all current NBC, ABC, FOX, and secondary channel content plus some back catalogs, some originals, and a growing catalog of good movies. Netflix at $8 or $10 for HD gives you a huge back catalog of shows, a huge library of originals, and a good collection of movies.

So how can you justify $4/month for one genre of content from NBC? Or $6 for just CBS? Comparatively, their offerings are too limited to warrant that price.

Plus this model does not scale. Filmstruck wants its $7-$11, Crunchyroll wants $7. Are all the content licensees going to try to extract their $4 - 12 from you for their content? Forget it. If that’s the new world, I’m not buying. I’ll stick with Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon, and I’ll supplement that with ad hoc purchases and rentals.

- Richard

You were talking about which services were considered "too expensive," and the survey said that CBS All Access was too expensive, but Hulu was not.

From my perspective, with Hulu, I get access to multiple networks (NBC, Fox, Comedy Central, etc.); but with CBS, I only get CBS. It does not seem worth it to me for the two or three shows that I want (especially when I want commcial-free), when I can use the other service to access many, many shows.